As 2015 news accounts describe, California has been in a drought for several years, and significant water restrictions have been issued statewide. With reduced river flows and diminished snow pack in the Rockies and Sierra Nevada mountains, water supplies in the Southwestern states are severely stretched. The Colorado River, the lifeblood of the Southwest, is severely overused, and upstream demands means it no longer flows to the sea. Written in 2006, Fred Pearces's book ' When the Rivers Run Dry', seems somewhat prophetic to those of us living in the Southwest United States. Finally, Pearce argues that the solution to the growing worldwide water shortage is not more and bigger dams but greater efficiency and a new water ethic based on managing the water cycle for maximum social benefit rather than narrow self-interest. And Pearce's vivid reportage reveals the personal stories behind failing rivers, barren fields, desertification, water wars, floods, and even the death of cultures. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historical dimensions of the crisis, he shows us its complex origins, from waste to wrong-headed engineering projects to high-yield crop varieties that have kept developing countries from starvation but are now emptying their water reserves. Veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce traveled to more than thirty countries while researching When the Rivers Run Dry it is our most complete portrait yet of the growing world water crisis. And economists say that by 2025, water scarcity will cut global food production by more than the current U.S. Great rivers like the Indus and the Nile, the Rio Grande and the Yellow River are running on empty. But now the Colorado's reservoirs are two-thirds empty. It was with the Colorado River that engineers first learned to control great rivers.

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